WHEREIN IS RELATED WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE ON HIS WAY TO SEE
HIS LADY DULCINEA DEL TOBOSO
Scarcely had Samson departed before Rocinante began to neigh, and
Dapple, Sancho's donkey, to bray; and these animal expressions,
considering the time, and the road they were taking, were interpreted
by their respective masters to be omens of good luck. But it so
happened that Dapple kept up his braying. As a matter of fact he
brayed so much louder than the emaciated Rocinante could neigh that
the superstitious Sancho took it for a sign that his own good fortune
would be ever so much greater than that of his master, though he was
considerate enough to say nothing about it to him.
Night soon began to fall, and the conversation between master and
squire turned to Don Quixote's incomparable love, whom he had never
seen in the flesh, and to whose abode he was now making this
pilgrimage in the dark, that he might be blessed by her before going
into new battles.
Sancho was beginning to worry that his imagination, with which he was
not overburdened, would give out; for with every new question of his
master's he had to give a fresh answer, and he was in a deadly fear
that Don Quixote might discover that he had never been at El Toboso
with the letter to his Lady Dulcinea. Again Don Quixote asked his
squire to repeat how he had been received when he had brought her the
message of his master's penance in the wilderness, but it infuriated
him that Sancho should insist on her having been sifting wheat instead
of pearls on that occasion. The courtyard wall mentioned by his squire
must, of course, have been a portico, or corridor, or gallery of some
rich and royal palace, only Sancho's language was so limited he could
not express himself or describe things properly. Or perhaps that
infernal enchanter had been busy again, and made things appear in
different shapes before his squire's eyes.
What his master said made Sancho's thought suddenly turn to the book
which the bachelor Samson had spoken of, and he began to worry that
some enchanter might have misrepresented his true character in its
pages. He felt it his place and duty to defend himself aloud against
any such evil; and having his master as audience, he proceeded to
carry out this thought, which, however, he abandoned towards the end
in favor of a careless independence: "But let them say what they like;
naked was I born, naked I find myself. I neither lose nor gain. When I
see myself put into a book and passed on from hand to hand all over
the world, I don't care a fig. Let them say what they like of me!"
Perhaps what Sancho had just said made Don Quixote's thoughts drift
out into the world, which was now being stirred by the accounts of his
greatness, for he fell into contemplation on all the tombs and
monuments to the great men of past ages. He touched upon the tombs of
some who had become saints, when suddenly Sancho shot this question to
him out of a clear sky: "Tell me, which is the greater work, to bring
a dead man to life or to kill a giant?"
Don Quixote was dumfounded by his squire's suddenness, but replied:
"The answer is easy. It is a greater work to bring to life a dead
man."
"Now I have got you!" Sancho exclaimed. Then he divulged his longing,
which he wanted his master to share, to become a saint; viewing a
saint's life from all sides, he had come to the conclusion that it was
a much more peaceful life than that of a roving knight errant, who had
to be up at all hours and out in all sorts of weather.
But his master answered laconically: "We cannot all be friars." And
then he went on to say that the number of knights errant in the world,
deserving that name, was a very small one; that, as a matter of truth,
knight-errantry, was a religion. But Sancho, stubborn as usual,
insisted that there were more friars in heaven than knights errant. In
this way they passed that night and the following day, without any
trace of excitement or adventure.
Finally, at daybreak on the second day, they approached the great
city of El Toboso; and Sancho's worries increased as they came closer
to the place where the heart of the peerless Dulcinea was beating--for
what was he going to say or do when his master wanted to meet his
beloved one? Don Quixote decided to await dusk before entering the
city, and they spent the day resting in the shade of some oak-trees
outside the town.